Before causing RPG fans to gnaw their fingers off in frustration at the devilishly difficult Souls series, From Software were busy making games filled with massive, customisable machines of war, amongst other things. There have been a number of criticism of the Armored Core series over the years, with the perhaps the two most notable, recurring gripes being the lack of evolution between games, and the series' staple obtuseness.

In many ways, Armored Core V is exactly what series fans (and everyone else for that matter) would have been expecting: a game that once again provides thrills and spills with ten-ton war machines, offers up innumerable customisation options in an all-too-fiddly and unintuitive interface, and provides immediate barriers to entry by doing very little to explain anything to anyone.

But that doesn't mean it's not an incredibly compelling experience, part of which is down to the social features that dominate everything in this game.